CARD OF HONOUR!

UNTIL a few weeks ago, he was hardly a household name. But now everyone knows Captain Tom Moore – as this sea of 100th birthday cards shows.

More than 120,000 have been sent to the Second World War veteran who has raised £29million for NHS charities by walking around his back garden.

Yesterday his grandson Benjie stood in the middle of the cards, carefully placed in the hall at Bedford School, where the 16-year-old is a pupil. The school has taken on the mammoth task of sorting through the sack loads of mail and a team of 20 volunteers have been opening them.

Cards have been sent from around the world as well as the UK, and from people of all ages. Some are handmade or customised with photos of Captain Tom. Thousands more are expected to arrive before his birthday on Thursday, by which time the JustGiving fund for NHS Charities Together may have passed £30million.

Those sent between Sunday and this Friday will arrive at the school bearing a special Royal Mail postmark: ‘Happy 100th Birthday Captain Thomas Moore NHS fundraising hero 30th April 2020.’

Captain Tom, who lives with his daughter Hannah and her family in Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire, set out to raise £1,000 but exceeded that within 24 hours. As donations continued to pour in, he extended his walk from 100 laps of the garden to 200, using his wheeled walking frame. Boris Johnson invoked his spirit yesterday.

Speaking in Downing Street as he returned to work for the first time in three weeks after being put in intensive care by Covid-19, the Prime Minister said: ‘If we, as a country, can show the same spirit of optimism and energy shown by Captain Tom Moore, who turns 100 this week, if we can show the same spirit of unity and determination as we have all shown in the past six weeks, then I have absolutely no doubt that we will beat it together.

‘We will come through this all the faster and the United Kingdom will emerge stronger than ever before.’